The Ones that Love Us, Never Really Leave Us
by ViserionsSnitch
Summary: With the death of Sirius, Remus runs on the full moon to grieve for his beloved friend in private when he is visited by two people he thought he would never see again.


Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Harry Potter, they belong to JK Rowling and not to me

_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Harry Potter, they belong to JK Rowling and not to me. sob _

_Author's Note: This was inspired by a beautiful haunting drawing I found on by Kinky-chichi and can be found here: Kinky-chichi./art/When-he-calls-11107413 _

_Another Note: I chose to make Remus THINK and FEEL as his werewolf form even though some people say that they cannot, I chose for the sake of this story to do it differently._

_I chose to write this in first person in order to truly grasp the emotions and feelings therein. Having lost a few people over my lifetime, I know what this is like, to know that someone we love and care for has gone before us. _

_Summary – With the death of Sirius, Remus runs on the full moon to grieve for his beloved friend in private when he is visited by two people he thought he would never see again._

**The Ones that Love Us, Never Really Leave Us  
by Viserion**

I was alone now. No longer surrounded by my friends which was really my second family they consisted of James Potter, Sirius Black, and Lily Evans. And now, they are all dead and I am alone. I remember when I first met them, on the train to Hogwarts all those years ago.

. . . _I was seated alone in the compartment, squirming in the robes that I wore for they were slightly worn and patched. I was afraid because of my problem . . . I was a werewolf, I had been since I was a small child and I hated being different, and I was more afraid of others knowing that I was that way. The door opened, three faces staring at me asking if they could sit with me. That warmed my heart in more ways than one._

_The only girl that was with them smiled shyly at me and introduced herself as Lily Evans, "what's your name?" she has asked me, and I fought a blush._

"_Lupin, Remus Lupin." I had responded, and glanced at the other two boys who were seated in the compartment. "who are you?"_

"_I'm James Potter, nice to meet you."_

"_Sirius Black. Likewise, mate, nice to meet you." . . ._

I remembered them, the smiles and the way we were all in Gryffindor House together, the four of us were inseparable. We would laugh and joke together, play some harmless pranks, mostly against Lily but they were all in good fun. I remembered the day I had to go for my transformation with disturbing clarity.

. . . _I met my friends that morning at the Gryffindor Table to eat breakfast and found myself eating more sausage and eggs than anything else. James and Sirius were staring at me like I had grown a second head and with my mouth full I muttered, "what?" _

_Lily simply smiled and leaned over, wiping my mouth with her napkin. "Ignore the boys, you're hungry, eat." She said to me, patting my hand and turning back to her own breakfast._

_I tucked in and finished eating my own breakfast before class, but I never saw the glances I was getting from James or Sirius. Gathering my things, I hurried out of the Great Hall towards my first class, only to turn and see that Lily was arguing with Sirius and James._

_Later that night, as I followed Madam Pomfrey to the Shrieking Shack, which they had built for me, I was lonely. I missed my friends, even though I would have attacked them had they been with me. . . _

The long nights in the Shrieking Shack made me realize that I needed my friends, but I thought they would turn on me because of who and what I really was. I sat there in the afternoon sun, shivering. I felt empty, cold and alone. I didn't think I would ever be warm again. My heart was in pain, and I hurt inside and out. My soul was crying for my friends, and I didn't know what else to do. I started to cry, as I remembered my second year at Hogwarts.

. . . _The compartment was mine again, and I was alone. Until the door opened and in spilled Sirius and James, both laughing and they had someone else with them. They closed the compartment and locked the door, and James looked at me, "Remus," he paused for a moment, "we know."_

"_You know what?" I asked, my voice trembling._

"_about your . . . furry little problem." Sirius said with a gentle smile, "did you think we were stupid and wouldn't figure it out eventually?"_

_I swallowed, hard. "no."_

_James smacked Sirius lightly on the arm, "stop it, you'll make him think we don't like him anymore."_

"_you don't like me anymore?" _

_Sirius groaned and stared at me, "Remus, we are your friends, and we care about you. We don't care about your problem, we want to help."_

"_You can't help me, Sirius." I replied, "I've been this way for a long time, and I'm just not safe around people when I . . . change." _

_James moved to sit next to me, moving the smaller boy, and wrapped an arm around my shaking shoulders, "Remus, look at me." I did, raising my eyes to meet James', "we want to be with you during those times, and we will." _

_I looked up for the first time, hope flickering in the depths of my gaze, "really?"_

_Sirius looked at me, and reached over taking my hand in his own and giving it a squeeze, "really, us Marauders need to stick together." . . ._

I sat quietly then, simply looking at the sun as it began to sink over the distant horizon, thinking of the surprise my friends gave me during our fifth year at Hogwarts.

. . . _I followed Madam Pomfrey once more towards the Shrieking Shack, watching as she made the Whomping Willow freeze for moments so I could pass by. Once she was sure I was in, she locked the trap door behind me so that I could not get out._

_I heard shuffling footsteps then Sirius' voice, "Bloody hell, James, that was my foot." He snapped and I stifled a laugh knowing exactly how dangerous it was that they had come._

"_What are you doing here? The moon will rise soon, I'm not safe, I told you this time and time again." I said sharply, watching as James threw his invisibility cloak off the three of them. It was Sirius, James and Peter. "All of you . . . what is this?" I asked, trembling._

_James walked over, "we did it, Remus. Oh piss off, Sirius, it didn't hurt that much." He said with one of his smiles, "we can stay with you."_

_And suddenly, I was watching as James' body began to shimmer with magic, his body becoming lithe and compact in body with long powerful legs. His hands and feet became slender with two toes on the hooves. His head however was beautiful and the antlers he had, I counted very quickly had twelve points on his antlers making him a stag. "James?" I asked hesitantly as he came over and nudged me with his soft nose. "You did it."_

"_We all did, Remus, to be with you." Sirius said as his own form shook and the form started to change. He was smaller than James, and a large dog. He barked at me, and I had to reach over and rub his ears playfully. He was about the size of a wolf to my eyes, but heavier, and covered in soft black fur. His eyes were blazing as he stared at me. _

"_Peter?" I asked, looking around but Peter was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, I heard something squeaking and there clutching one of James' antlers was a large garden rat. I forced myself to chuckle, then gasped as my own transformation struck and then all I can remember is lazing about with the friends I loved . . ._

I started to cry then, as the pain grew in my soul. My friends, the ones I loved more than life were gone. Peter Pettigrew aside, because after all that I had discovered thanks to Sirius he was exactly what he was, a rat. There was a grief that I couldn't talk about, pain that continued to go on while I lived and they had died. I saw them everywhere lately, when I hunted for my own food during the nights I was a wolf I avoided hunting stags in reminder of James, for even though I was nothing more than an animal, there was some vestige of me that was still human.

I saw them at the windows, shadows of them staring and watching me, but I knew that they were not actually there. In my dreams, we were together again, laughing and joking in the common room of Gryffindor Tower, lazing about at the Potter's where I was welcome even with my affliction. I could hear them making fun of me in the mirror when I dressed in the morning, teasing me about my hair and for me the voices were enough but not anymore.

James' death had hit me hard, and I remembered going to the Shrieking Shack where we had spent so much time together and cried. Shadows passed over the floor and one of them I swore was shaped like a stag. I stared at the empty room and knew that this was where my friends would meet no more. I mourned the loss of my friend each time the full moon rose into the sky. Then another blow when I discovered that my best friend, Sirius Black was the one who betrayed James and Lily to Voldemort which had ultimately gotten them killed.

When the letter came years later from Dumbledore asking me to teach at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, I took it just so I could see the child that I had never seen before. Harry. The son of James and Lily.

. . ._ I stood on the bridge next to Harry Potter and couldn't help myself but stared at him for a long moment, as he spoke to me and we started a conversation about what we feared the most and how he had heard his mother screaming. I smiled and told him something that I had never told anyone. "I knew your mother, she was there for me when no one else was." I had spoken softly, and it hit me like a punch to the gut how much he reminded me of his father, my friend, James. "You have your mother's eyes, Harry. That is how I knew you. Not the scar, or the fact that you look like James." _

_Harry was standing there, watching me with Lily's eyes and listening to every word I had to say. He didn't interrupt, just listened to what I had to say and I found myself talking more about Lily and the pain of her death struck me hard once more and brought a tear to my eye that I wiped away before he could see. We spent more time together into the afternoon and I told him more about his parents, the ones he never knew, the ones I had known so well . . ._

I had to fight the smile that rose to my lips as the memory of Harry coming to me with the map that I remembered when we made it.

. . . _We pored over the blank pieces of parchment, Sirius and James having studied all sorts of charms and things to make it do what they wanted. I simply sat trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing. We charmed the parchment to never lie, and to show where everyone in the castle was at any given time or place. Once we were done, we had a lot of fun running around under James' invisibility cloak and finding several passages out of the castle to other places. We signed it with our new nicknames, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, and called it what else, 'the Marauder's Map' . . . _

With a deep sigh, I sat there staring at the horizon where the sun was slowly starting its descent over the horizon and I could already feel the pull of the moon tugging at me. The discovery of Peter being the one who betrayed James and Lily made me very angry but when Sirius got away again, I knew I would see my friend again. The stars began to twinkle merrily as the sun went down and the full moon began to rise into the darkening sky.

I knew that this hurt, it did every time and the growling groan that left my lips seemed very familiar until it became a scream of agonizing pain. My body began to writhe as I felt my body start to shift, my hands dug into the earth tearing into the dirt while the power of the wolf that burned within me ripped my insides apart. I was so distraught over the death of my friends, since Sirius had just fallen a few weeks ago, that there was no moment of my bones sliding and reshaping themselves.

There was only power and I remember briefly like a flash of light that I was human one moment and something else the next, as the power exploded and the skin that was mine exploded outwards. I was furry again, and my tail flicked behind me sadly and for the first time in my life as a werewolf I had no urge to hunt. I had no urge to do anything but mourn my friends in the only way I knew how.

My paws were heavy as I made my way to the top of a hill that was covered in a light falling of snow. I was angry with myself for losing my friends in the manner I had and bit and scratched myself in my sorrow. I wanted to die. I wanted to join my friends, I didn't want to be alone anymore. I hated this, James lost his life so early in it, and then Sirius so soon after I had found him again. The grief that ate at my heart while I was human was doubled when I was in my wolf form, for they were my pack-mates.

I threw my head back as I sat heavily in the snow and howled mournfully to the full moon that was creeping its way across the starry sky. I tore at myself some more, hoping beyond hope to bleed to death and watched as the snow turned crimson from the blood that surged from my self-inflicted wounds. I could feel myself crying though at this moment in time I had never realized I could cry. And with another mournful howl, another lupine voice joined mine.

The harmonious yet poignant vigil to my friends was being joined by others, and though other lupine voices sent sharp pains through my heart and soul as I wanted to be with them so badly that I never felt it.

The specter moved and gently nuzzled me beneath my chin as I raised my head in the howl. A pair of translucent wings were on the dogs back and I instantly knew who it was. _Sirius . . . Padfoot, you're here._ I looked around then, my eyes widening as Sirius' Animagus specter was crying as well, as though he knew what I was thinking and feeling.

"Remus, I know that you can hear me, and you have a life that you MUST lead."

I heard that voice and saw that a stag had come up behind me, he too had wings moving quietly he stood behind me, tears falling out of his eyes, _James, Prongs._

"We cannot stay long with you, old friend, but we came because you needed us tonight."

I watched unsure of what was happening as my two oldest friends began to go from translucent to solid and suddenly I was staring at a stag and a large black dog, both with wings and I yipped happily.

"Come on, Remus, for old time's sake." James said as he tossed his antlers and reared, striking out playfully with his front hooves.

I had loved this game when we were together in school, it was like tag and I knew that I could never hurt my friends. James tore off through the foliage and Sirius and I bounded after him. After he led us on a merry chase for ten minutes, we finally caught him and then it was Sirius who was off. We played all night until the sun started to rise on the horizon and I painfully shifted back and was naked before my friends, but I didn't care, they had seen me this way before.

I was crying again, but this time for a totally different reason, they were leaving me again, and I wasn't sure I could cope. I sat there, naked as the day I was born, sobbing uncontrollably into my hands and then I felt something I had not felt in years, a hand. Looking up, my eyes large and filled with unshed tears stared up at James Potter who was smiling down at me. "Remus."

"James!" I turned my head, "Sirius!" I was overjoyed to see them even though I knew that they were really not there. "What . . . how . . ."

"You needed us, its as James said, Moony." Sirius said gently as he sat down next to me and gave me a hug. "you have to live, you're the only protector that Harry has now, and he will need you."

"I have always watched over my son, as has Lily. But tonight, your grief was enough to pull us over. Sirius is right, you have to live, Remus, for us, for Harry."

I nodded, tears cascading down my cheeks as I looked up at them. James had sat down on the other side of me and wrapped me in a hug, and soon the three of us were clinging to each other and I didn't want to let either one of them go. I felt rather than heard them slowly going invisible and changing to their Animagus forms once more, the wings sprouting on their backs. "I love you guys . . . and I'm so sorry."

James smiled at me, "Moony, it was our time. This is not your time and we will meet again." He said just before he turned into a stag and shimmered before me with the light of the dawn.

I turned slowly towards Sirius, "You know, the ones that love us, never really leave us, Remus. You can always find them in your heart, and I know that is where we will always stay until we meet again." He said to me and I nodded slowly, my lower lip quivering.

Together, Sirius and James shone in the dawn's light, glittering as they vanished from my sight and I started to sob once more. But then I felt them, filling my heart and soul with love and I realized at that very moment that Sirius had been right all along.

The ones that love us, never really leave us . . . and they will always be where I need them the most. In my heart.


End file.
